A blog on the current crises in the Middle East and news accounts unpublished by the US press. Daily timeline of events in Iraq as collected from stories and dispatches in the French and Italian media: Le Monde (Paris), Il Corriere della Sera (Milan), La Repubblica (Rome), L'Orient-Le Jour (Beirut) and occasionally from El Mundo (Madrid).

# date kidnapping announced
## confirmed execution date
* Al Jazeera broadcast of video of the execution of a US soldier; unknown if it was Maupin
** Video shown on Internet
*** Confirmed by Turkish Embassy
**** identified August 11.

17:59 Sofia. Poland to reduce troop numbers after elections. Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Smajdzinski says Poland will reduce troop strength from 2,500 to 1,700 following the elections during a visit to Bulgaria. Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolay Svinarov said his country would decide in March whether to keep its contingent of 480 men in south-central Iraq

17:40 Tbilisi. Georgia to triple troop strength. Georgia will send 550 troops to Baghdad in February. The current contingent is located in Baluba, 70 km north of Baghdad.

17:14 Mosul. Roadside bomb kills US soldier.

15:47 Baghdad. Al Zarqawi figure arrested. US troops arrested a Saudi national on 24 December thought to have connections to Abu Mussab al Zarqawi.

16:54 Rome. Italy recommends that reporters avoid Iraq. The Italian Foreign Ministry has issued a formal letter to Italian media outlets recommending that correspondents not be sent to Iraq.

14:36 Ramadi. Multimillion dollar bank robbery. Armed men held up a bank in Ramadi, getting away with $3.5 million.

13:38 Baquba. Provincial council member assassinated. Mouayad Sami, member of the Diyala provincial council, was assassinated in front of his home. Meanwhile a roadside bomb killed one policeman and woulded six other persons.

12:23 Najaf. Sistani collaborators assassinated. Two collaborators of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani were assassinated. Shaikh Halim al-Afghani was killed in Najaf and the other, Sheik Mahmud al-Madahini, was killed in Salman Pak south of Baghdad, together with his son and four bodyguards.

11:27 New York. White House blocks torture prohibition. The New York Times reports that the White House blocked the adoption of a law by the US Congress forbidding the CIA to use torture in the war on terror.

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this blog and thank you for putting my brother's name among the hostages. just a correction, my brother's name is Badri Ghazi Abu Hamzeh, and not Ghazi Abu Hamzeh. He is a Lebanese American but was never listed as a missing American. he went missing on Nov 6 2004, but by the time we learned about it it was Nov 13.I have been desperatley trying to find anything that will prove that he is a hostage and not simply disappeared because that will change the equation of the US government in looking for him.thank you again, a desperate sister, Roueida